Abstract
This essay revisits the old, but by no means settled, question of the modernity of some political theories in “pre-modern” Japan. It starts by arguing that what makes some political theories modern is their desire and their ability to make sense of “modern societies”. These are defined as societies where the growth of, implicit or explicit, contractual arrangements – themselves largely prompted by phenomena like urbanization, division of work, spread of money economy, education, or salaried work – is severely challenging the older status based order. The most eloquent representative of such modern theories is the late eighteenth -early nineteenth century author, Kaiho Seiryō. Granted, Seiryō is careful not to openly criticize the largely feudal order of contemporary society. However, working only with indigenous vocabularies, he justifies social and political relationships purely based on egoist strategies and utilitarian calculus, and limited in time by the interests of concerned parties: what is called here “contractual” arrangements. The essay also analyzes the thought of the thinker represented in the classic studies of Maruyama Masao, as the modern thinker per excellence of the period, Ogyū Sorai. It supports his today often-criticized views of Sorai as a positivist (in the sense where the term is used in the philosophy of law). It does so, however, by offering another interpretation of Sorai’s “religious” statements, typically used to refute Maruyama’s reading. By distinguishing two different perspectives on the Way, external and internal, in Sorai’s writings, the essay upholds a positivist interpretation, but reconciles diametrically opposed views of his thinking. It stresses that while this positivism does not qualify Sorai as a modern thinker, it had to be accepted by the modern theory of Seiryō. Seiryō’s case, it is argued, shows the possibility, but also the limits, of the emergence of modern political thought in the pre-modern non-occidental world.
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Notes
- 1.
The opposition dates back to the founding fathers of sociology who posited this basic dichotomy between two forms of human arrangements: for Tönnies, Gemeinshaft and Gesellshaft; for Weber traditional and rational authority, for Durkheim mechanic and organic solidarity, for others primary and secondary group, etc. Louis Dumont more recently inherited this tradition when he declared that there have only been to this day two kinds of human societies, holistic or individualistic (Dumont 1986: 25). (Interestingly Dumont adds that it is also, and maybe more profoundly, at the levels of their self representations that individualistic societies differ from the others.) Whatever squabbles and quarrels one may have with these simplified dichotomies (see Mary Douglas 1978: 161), they seem, as ideal types, useful models to understand basic social dynamics, and are indeed used casually in today sociological literature: see also Anthony Giddens affirming that “the question of modernity … has reappeared as a fundamental sociological problem at the turn of the twenty first century.… Modern institutions differ from all preceding forms of social order” (Giddens 1991: 1).
- 2.
I also avoid, by starting with the concept of modern societies, the dead end that is the now fashionable concept of multiple modernities. Undoubtedly inspired by the best intentions of political correctness, the idea that there are different – say, Japanese, African, Indian, etc. – modernities can hardly avoid the question: if modernity can exist in different versions – a very trivial truth – what makes these versions similarly modern? The answer can only be that those models all share certain basic resemblances in their social organization. Political theories try to justify those basic commonalities; that they exist among a variety of customs, ways of thinking and traditions is another question.
- 3.
At another, yet anterior, level, equally important to make structures and arrangements acceptable or compelling, of course, are social conditions: these belong to the sociology of knowledge which shall briefly be mentioned when the essay treats the “why” question.
- 4.
What constitutes a “sound justification” is clearly a matter for philosophical debate – as the contest between different modern theories shows well. The fact that background assumptions are not provable is a factor in this. Still it seems clear that some types of justification are stronger than others. It is striking that in modern or contemporary political philosophy, religious motives are almost absent, and that movements like fascism and nationalism have not found their Hegel, their Locke, their Burke. As Benedict Anderson, who made this remark, suggests, theoretical inconsistency is likely to be the cause (Anderson 1991). Understanding by “modern political theories” a certain type of philosophical content, rather than all theories found in modern societies, avoids the problems caused by their diversity.
- 5.
Sorai is not alone in the Confucian tradition in taking this stance; Xunzi 荀子 (ca. 312–230 BCE) probably did the same – but this is a controversial point that must be left aside.
- 6.
Bitō Masahide (Bitō 1982: 48), Minamoto Ryōen (Minamoto 1984: 9, 16) and Hiraishi Naoaki (Hiraishi 1988: 98) mention the religious and spiritual dimension of Sorai’s thought without elaborating on its problematic coexistence. J. A. Tucker, apparently attracted by a non-positivist reading (Tucker 2006: 126), does not comment on a possible tension or a fortiori on possible contradiction; I. J. McMullen (McMullen 2007: 130–131) speaks of “the paradoxical assumptions concerning the status of the way,” but does not address the philosophical issue of the foundations of the way. Some may be tempted to view the respect for gods and heaven as a purely ceremonial and formal. This would not entail any respect for norms, but such a reading would be decidedly odd. It would not explain Sorai’s insistence on respect.
- 7.
It is tempting for some to think, as indeed the editor of the volume on Sorai in the Nihon shisō taikei collection urges us to, and as students in seminars about Sorai are still regularly told, that Sorai is referring only to one specific, and incorrect, view of Shintō. However, this is a purely ad hoc and puzzling attempt to get rid of an annoying – although confirmed by many other indications as we shall see – problem. In fact the organization of the argument in this passage excludes this interpretation. Sorai, in the preceding sentence, has clearly defined Shintō in the broadest terms as the belief in and respect of the local gods called in Japan kami. This Shintō, he even adds, should be seen as part of the way of the ancient sages! Arguing against authors who put into doubt the existence of gods and spirits in general, Sorai then remarks that this shows a misunderstanding and disrespect for the way of the sages – not for the kami! Just after he has stated that even if Shintō was wrong, the gods it assumes have to be respected, Sorai concludes that the way requests that people born in Japan respect the gods of Japan. The argument is thus clearly that gods have to be revered because they are assumed by the way, whether they exist or not in the natural world. In fact Sorai never says that the gods mentioned by some specific Shintō doctrines should be respected because they are real, even if the Shintō vision of them is wrong.
- 8.
The same point has also been made earlier in the first section of Distinguishing the Way (Bendō), where Sorai notes that cups are made of certain woods and not of others without allowing us to say that the first have the cups in their nature. It is also found in his Commentary on the Mean (Ogyū, Chūyōkai 1978: 440).
- 9.
He is taking the external perspective whenever he assumes the position of legislator or policy proposer. Unsurprisingly he was accused of seeing himself as a sage. Lest he departed from the Confucian tradition, focused on the transmission – not the creation – of an existing way, he had to deny it, but as he remarks, about Mencius, one cannot help, by making political proposals, to assume the role of the Sage (Ogyū, Bendō 1973a: 201).
- 10.
However the argument itself hints at the existence of an external perspective, and indeed Sorai’s commentaries on the classics are replete with glimpses of the other perspective: as when he dwells on the differences between the different ways of antiquity.
- 11.
This is, of course, does not settle the issue of religion in the intimate convictions of Sorai – that I am unable and unwilling to try to fathom. The reason for me to revisit the question of heaven, ghosts, and spirits here is only that it supports the idea of a break with nature in Sorai’s political theory.
- 12.
His disenchanted metaphysics was certainly not accompanied by the enthusiasm that the disappearance of the old cosmology provoked in the first modern European minds – Giordano Bruno or Bacon.
- 13.
Seiryō, however, accepts the concept of rituals as pattern of behavior to control the heart and he repeats one of Sorai’s arguments about this (Kaiho, Sūmitsu dan 1976e: 155).
- 14.
In fact some may be surprised by the inclusion of Kaiho Seiryō in a work on Confucian authors. Seiryō, however, never criticizes Confucius. Quite the contrary, he quotes him often, and abundantly uses his sayings to justify his positions – even if he typically read them in very novel ways. In fact the reason for including him in a study of Confucian thinking lies precisely here: he shows us how far the Confucian vocabulary and texts could be stretched, used, and abused. But even though Seiryō introduces himself as a Confucian scholar, a jusha, (Kaiho, Keiko dan 1976a: 314), it must be admitted that he turns upside down the traditional Confucian wisdom.
- 15.
Principle is also referred to by many other names. The mandate of heaven (tenmei) is a synonym, for the mandate of heaven makes things such that if one does not do anything one will die of hunger (Kaiho, Sūmitsu dan 1976e: 174). Heaven (ten 天) is another one, for heaven makes things such that if a bird makes the effort necessary to fly a mile, it will fly a mile, and that if it does not make the effort, it will not fly a mile (Kaiho, Fuki dan 1976k: 522). Principle, the mandate of heaven, heaven, but also the principles of heaven, all refer to the way things happen as they do happen and not otherwise. By definition, these concepts cover everything and nothing escapes from them (Kaiho, Tennō dan 1976f: 501). They refer to the facts of life. It is impossible to go against those facts of life (Kaiho, Fuki dan 1976k: 521). Only very deluded people claim that what they call the world of the spontaneous (shizen 自然) happens outside principle (Kaiho, Tennō dan 1976f: 510).
- 16.
It is here that one difference with Sorai appears. Sorai, while he was not excluding all knowledge of natural things (in fact what he was excluding was rather the knowledge of the origins of things), was keen to make knowledge the preserve of the sages. Seiryō stresses the necessity for all of understanding and knowing the mechanisms of the world of facts.
- 17.
Even this overarching perspective should be encompassed in yet a larger one, triggering possibly a vicious infinite regression (Kaiho, Kōhan dan 1976b: 587).
- 18.
Of course Sorai could have gone further: after all what he was saying was that the origin of things was unknowable, but not the things themselves. But even in his few works openly taking the external perspective – the Seidan or the Taiheisaku – he was not much interested in the production of commodities which obviously requires investigation of the natural world.
- 19.
This is justified by the fact that such people could not survive in the natural world where they face immediately the consequences of their actions. Still there is no natural model here, for, on the other hand, Seiryō affirms that public help is possible and justified in cases of genuine need: helping families with many children for example is legitimate, for the parents cannot meet the needs of children who later will work for the public good (see Kaiho, Yōro dan 1976g: 199; Yumin dan 1976i: 540). Interest – here public – remains the sole criterion for justification.
- 20.
However, because Seiryō is able to recognize that some factors, like the education received from one’s parents (Kaiho, Kōhan dan 1976b: 646) are a crucial element in one’s success in life, he suggests also that it is more as a necessary assumption that he views the principle of individual responsibility.
- 21.
Han Feizi, chap. 36. The Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji, Lianpo liezhuan) of Sima Qian also contains also a famous expression: “the way of the market,” explained as the practice for humans of looking only after their own interest and engaging in relationships only in this perspective.
- 22.
This is why there exists in Seiryō’s writings a rich rhetoric centered around words like eye, see, glance, look, perspective, etc., though he urges his audience to look at things in a novel way. Although I do not have time to examine this here, Seiryō realized that the problem so many had with the new social order (Sorai among them) is that they looked at things through the old images – and found the new arrangements repulsive. When Seiryō claimed that one need to realize that land, wood, everything under heaven is in fact merchandise, he was building a new social imaginary. All this means obviously that whatever modernity there was in Seiryō’s theories was only the modernity already existing, in patches of Tokugawa society. It is not surprising then that Seiryō is only synthesizing intuitions that it is not difficult to find, in a non-systematic fashion, in many other of his contemporaries. Seiryō is often described as a maverick, but in fact businessmen-administrators like Nozoki Yoshimasa in Yonezawa (Ravina 1999) and agriculturalists (nōgakusha) like Okura Nagatsune knew full well that moral sermons had little influence on people’s behavior and that any solid policy had to motivate people by going some ways toward satisfying their self interest.
- 23.
Although the focus of this article was the two figures of Ogyū Sorai and Kaiho Seiryō, the intellectual lineage issued from Sorai can boast other important contributions to the development of modern ideas. Dazai Shundai especially, direct disciple of Sorai, prefigures in some ways the paradigm shift that would be completed with Seiryō. While still attached to the status-based community that Sorai defended, he perceived much better than Sorai the crucial role of money and of economic strategy. Even more importantly I think, he saw that human relationships have become relationships between strangers – those relationships found in modern towns and not in traditional communities. This explains the extraordinary inversion of the role and function assigned to patterns of behavior Sorai called rituals. For Shundai they have become tools of civility that must govern relations between strangers, even at the cost of dissimulation. I had here to leave aside, however, Shundai’s important contribution to the articulation of modern political ideas. Obviously also we find in many other authors of the period, outside the Sorai’s school, glimpses of movements towards new conceptions of the individuals and of society. My focus on the two figures of Sorai and Seiryō is explained by the coherence, and the extension through different philosophical sub-fields of their intuitions.
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Ansart, O. (2014). The Philosophical Moment Between Ogyū Sorai and Kaiho Seiryō: Indigenous Modernity in the Political Theories of Eighteenth-Century Japan?. In: Huang, Cc., Tucker, J. (eds) Dao Companion to Japanese Confucian Philosophy. Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy, vol 5. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2921-8_7
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